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Shere Khan
Shere Khan is the primary villain of The Jungle Book. A powerful, suave tiger, Shere Khan has nothing but disdain for his victims. His reputation is such that he need only show himself to intimidate the inhabitants of the jungle. His only fear is fire, which the man-cub Mowgli uses to his advantage in the film's climactic battle. He ranked #12 in the top 30 disney villains (One better than Chernabog but one under Gaston.) He was voiced by aristocratic cad George Sanders who had a talent for depicting villainous characters, then later voiced by Tony Jay, who too voiced Judge Claude Frollo. In the book In Rudyard Kipling's novel, Khan was a more sympathetic character. Born with a withered leg and nicknamed Lungri (a feminine word meaning "The Lame One"), he was arrogant and regarded himself as the rightful lord of the jungle. Despite his disability, he was intelligent and an influential figure in the jungle. He was also the mastermind behind most the problems Mowgli faced and finally met his demise when Mowgli trapped him in a canyon and dropped rocks on him. And they call him the good guy. Khan has a sidekick and friend in the book, a golden jackal named Tabaqui the Dish Licker who was not unlike Sir Hiss. In the film The Jungle Book (1967) While remaining as haughty as he is in the book, Khan is no longer crippled. He is quite similar to Hannibal Lecter in that he is eerily polite to his victims before he kills and eats them. Feared and renowned throughout the jungle, he is unique among villains in that he almost never loses his temper. Rather, he is able to intimidate those around him just by looking at them. He possesses great strength of will and appears immune to Kaa's powers. Khan loaths humanity, fearing that they will one day challenge his hegemony. As such when Mowgli arrives in the jungle, he does all in his powers to destroy him. He appears in the final third of the movie but is regarded to be one of the best animated villains ever. Khan comes into contact with Mowgli at the climax of the film and is amused by the fact that Mowgli doesn't seem afraid of him. Ultimately his vanity leads to his downfall, when he gives Mowgli a sporting chance by giving him time to run. He is annoyed when the man-cub choses not to run but before he can do anything about it, Baloo arrives and attacks the tiger. Finally showing his fiery temper, Khan swiftly and easily overpowers Baloo but is set upon by a flock of vultures who bear a striking resemblance to a certain human rock band. Presently, a well-placed bolt of lightening (of the kind so often seen in Disney films) ignites a dead tree. While Khan is preoccupied fighting the vultures, Mowgli ties a burning brance to his tail. Fire is the one thing Khan fears and as such, he has a panic attack and flees in terror, leaving the vultures to remark "That's the last we'll see of 'im - went off like a flyin' comet 'ee did!" The Jungle Book 2 The vulture was proven wrong in the Disney sequel, The Jungle Book 2 when Shere Khan returns to the jungle, humiliated and determined to kill Mowgli, this time as revenge. He fails, and becomes trapped under a stone tiger head in a ruinous palace. He isn't killed, but misses the opportunity to kill Mowgli once again. It is unknown if he ever got out of the stone tiger head or not but presumably he does not and starves to death. Shere Khan was included in the cast of characters in the Disney Afternoon series Tale Spin, being cast as the richest corporate magnate in the harbor town of Cape Suzette. He was a nominal villain who occasionally allied with the heroes when it suited him - such as when he allowed Baloo to fly his plane after destroying the robotic pilot he had been using previously, as the pilot's A.I. lacked the ability to cope with unexpected occurrences during the flight. He was voiced by the late Tony Jay, who provided a voice remarkably similar to George Sander's rendition. The Jungle Book (1994) In the 1994 film, Shere Khan is presented as a more sympathetic character and anti-hero. He does not kill for sport, and his sole goal is to protect the jungle from those who break "the laws of the jungle", including humans who trespass with guns and kill animals to eat. At the beginning of the movie, he sees numerous guards shooting animals for fun, and becomes enraged. That night, he attacks the humans' camp, and kills Mowgli's father, who was defending one of the hunters, in the process. He is not seen again until the second half of the movie, where he mauls Lt. Wilkins, a henchman of Captain Boone, the movie's main villain, and after the climactic battle between Mowgli and Boone, Khan and Mowgli meet face to face after a long time. Khan is obviously still distrusting of Mowgli (and all humans in general), and attempts to scare him away by roaring in his face, but Mowgli stubbornly roars back and stares Khan down. Khan develops a newfound respect for Mowgli, and begins to see him as a fellow "creature of the jungle". The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story In the 1998 direct-to-video, The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story, Shere Khan returns as the main villain, though the film is live-action like the 1994 film. But like the animated movie, the animals, including Shere Khan, talk; he is voiced by Sherman Howard. This Shere Khan, though, is different from his animated counterpart. He has his original sidekick, Tabaqui the despised and cowardly spotted hyena, he can be polite, but is mostly brutal and ruthless, and proves to be a great strategist and tactician as it was he who succeeded in separating Mowgli from his pack and enticing the monkeys in kidnapping him by promising them Baloo's secret honey. To make Shere Khan very evil, he actually succeeds in killing one of Mowgli's loved ones. But unlike his animated counterpart, who encounters and seemingly kills Baloo, who he tries to save Mowgli from him, Shere Khan encounters and completely kills Mowgli's wolf mother, Raksha, when she tries to rescue him from the monkeys and Shere Khan. In the end, Mowgli scares Shere Khan off with fire, and banishes him for his evil. Mowgli especially warns him that if he should ever return, Shere Khan will be destroyed as shown when the man-cub burned a picture of a tiger right before his enemy's horrified eyes. While he is heavily the same as his animated counterpart, his actions and fate make him similar to Man for killing the hero's mother, and Captain Hook for trying to kill the hero and in the end being banished by him. TV Series Shere Khan also appeared as a main character in the Disney Channel series Jungle Cubs, where he was portrayed as a tiger cub, more a bully than a predator, but nonetheless friends with the other characters. In this show, Shere Khan is voiced by Jason Marsden. The producers originally wanted Khan to keep his British accent for the show, but later changed their mind and Shere Khan ended up with an American accent, completely different from that of his adult version. The adult version of himself appears in the Jungle Cubs: Born to be Wild video, and in these cutscenes, he attempts to kill Mowgli when he, Baloo and Bagheera walk into his part of the jungle. Baloo and Bagheera try to reason with Khan by recounting the Red Dogs story, in which they and the other animals saved Khan's life, but Khan refuses to listen. Baloo throws a stone at a beehive and grabs Khan by the head, letting go only when the beehive falls on his head. Khan, with the beehive still on his head, runs away from the angry bees. Shere Khan appears in Basil Of Baker Street as the main character but he is a anti-hero. In other media A tiger who looks a lot like Shere Khan in facial structure makes an appearence in the episode Good Neighbour Cruella of 101 Dalmatians: The Series, although his fur is a noticably different shade of orange. Shere Khan is a recurring character in the animated series TaleSpin and is portrayed as a buisnessman of a company named Khan Enterprises. Whilst he isn't necessarily a villain he is ruthless in his practices and often causes trouble for the protagonists. He was voiced by Tony Jay at the time. Trivia *Some people think Shere Khan is the predator that killed Bambi's mother. See also * Scar * Prince John * Zira * Nuka * Vitani * Professor Ratigan * Percival C. 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